


The History of the World

by Helholden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, AFFC spoilers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 11:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3133481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the history of the world. All people die, but not many of them get to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The History of the World

_* * *_

 

The winds are high that day, blowing cold gusts out of the north across the sea to the canals. She can raise her chin, breathe in, and taste the salt on the back of her tongue. Fishermen are coming in from the docks to escape the oncoming storm, the buckets of their fresh catch pungent on the wind.

 

The storm clouds are deep purple, roiling in the sky on the horizon. The sun is nearly gone from all sight.

 

She turns away from them and hurries through the crowd unseen on light feet, even as shoulders bump and arms brush, because she is shorter than the rest and when they turn to look, she is already gone.

 

 _Quick as a snake_ , she thinks, the mantra always in her head. _Calm as still water_ . . .

 

She moves like both, and they never see her.

 

When she reaches the doors of the House of Black and White, she glances up at the ebony and weirwood. They open for her like old friends.

 

She never has to knock anymore. They know her name.

 

 _No one_ , they whisper.

 

-

 

“Izembaro says the storm is an omen,” the waif tells her.

 

“Izembaro says everything is an omen,” she answers, and the waif—who never laughs—at least smiles. She can’t see it, not in the dark, but she can feel it on the air like the breeze of a ghostly hand. Her senses have gotten better ever since she had been blind, and she can feel things in the dark now, even when she can’t see them.

 

“Izembaro also says you have too many opinions,” the waif counters. Her voice hasn’t changed, and yet it has.

 

She can sense that, too. She frowns, a girl who never shows emotion anymore—or isn’t supposed to, though she still does.

 

“I don’t have opinions,” she lies. “I am no one. No one doesn’t have opinions.”

 

The waif says nothing in reply, but she can hear the waif’s disagreement. It is a quiet, untouched silence that unnerves her.

 

 _Liar_ , the silence says, but at least the waif does not slap liars.

 

-

 

With each new name, each new face, she is never too far from who she really is.

 

Though they want her to forget, she will never forget. It will never happen. _I am Arya Stark of Winterfell_ , she thinks at night before she closes her eyes, _daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark_.

 

They want to change her, remake her image with new faces, reshape her as if she is clay, but underneath each face runs Stark blood, and under each name is _Arya_.

 

Maybe they know this, but they still let her work for them in service to the Many-Faced God.

 

The Faceless Men.

 

She is not one of them, but she pretends to be. She dances her blade across each man’s throat, but no matter how much blood she spills, no matter how much she coats herself in, it does not replace the blood in her veins. She thinks they will see this one day. She thinks they will notice, and then they will cut her throat, too.

 

She will leave them one day. She knows this. She has known it for a long time.

 

She performs another play. It may be her last one.

 

 _Mercy, mercy_ , they cry.

 

-

 

She leaves on the edge of a storm. _It is an omen_ , Izembaro says, _an omen of change_. _The storm destroys that which is weak and old and bring new ground to flourish in its place_. _You do know this, don’t you, girl?_

 

Arya thinks it is fitting to flee on the wind, leaving her masks behind her.

 

She arrived in this city as Arya, and she will leave it as Arya.

 

She casts her gaze over her shoulder. The ports of Braavos are dark grey behind her under the shadow of the storm. She thinks in the morning they will be full of light and life and busy with peddlers shouting out their prices to the burgeoning crowd.

 

But she will never see it.

 

-

 

She is six and ten, so she binds her chest beneath her tunic and cuts her hair short to travel as a young man.

 

It is safer, she learned a long time ago, than traveling as a lone woman.

 

Arya dirties her face for good measure as well as her nails. She has done enough service, she thinks, with her hands to make them rougher. They aren’t as smooth as they had once been in her youth. No one questions her high voice, though she tries her best to deepen it some without sounding false.

 

She finds work at a local inn in the Riverlands in a town called Maidenpool. The men make fun of her and claim she isn’t a proper man until she lays with a lady. One of them offers to pay for a local whore, but Arya hastily claims she doesn’t want any bastards.

 

They laugh at that, but then they leave her be.

 

-

 

When they run out of work in Maidenpool, Arya leaves and takes the road south to Duskendale. The journey doesn’t take too long. She leaves before light in the morning and finds herself walking through the streets of Duskendale by evening as the sun sinks low behind its buildings.

 

She guides her horse by the reins instead of riding it through, hearing a hammer ring off of metal in a blacksmith’s forge and stopping at the once familiar sound. Arya glances inside the open forge and pauses. The shock of black hair is easily dismissible until he turns around, and her jaw falls slack.

 

He freezes, staring back at her, his eyes registering shock. Her bag slips from her shoulder, and she has to catch it before it falls. He drops his hammer on accident, and it hits the ground, nearly striking his foot.

 

Gendry jumps, swearing loudly.

 

“Be careful there,” she calls out, “or you’ll lose your foot!”

 

He blinks stupidly, staring at the hammer, and looks up at her again.

 

“You only get two of those,” Arya adds half-heartedly, feeling a little foolish, but she doesn’t know what else to say.

 

Gendry steps forward, stepping out of the shadow that’s inside of the forge. His blue eyes shine with recognition at her face. It’s been years, but he still knows her.

 

“It is you,” he finally says, a little breathless.

 

“Yeah,” Arya answers, though she doesn’t say her name out loud. He knows it. Gendry doesn’t need it repeated for him. These aren’t the times for Starks or their friends.

 

“I thought you were dead,” Gendry says, nodding his head at her.

 

Arya shrugs the strap of her bag back onto her shoulder. “I was,” she tells him, “but I’m back now.”

 

His eyes turn dark at her choice of words. “Don’t say things like that,” he retorts in a gruff voice, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

 

Arya makes a face. She isn’t sure what memories her words brought up, but it’s clear Gendry has some.

 

“Do you want a drink?” Gendry suddenly asks next. He exits the forge, walking up to her, and holds out his hand as if to accept something from her. “We got a spot over here. I can tie up your horse. No one will touch her.”

 

Arya nods her head. “Sure,” she answers him.

 

She hands over the reins, watching as Gendry ties up her mare on the side of the blacksmith’s forge. He comes back to her, rubbing his soot-covered hands on his trousers as if it will clean them off. “Do you want to carry your bag?” he asks her, and he gestures over his shoulder with his thumb. “I can put it in my quarters if you want.”

 

Arya opens her mouth to say she will carry it with her, but then she thinks about the weight of it and leaving it on the floor somewhere and decides against it. She nods her head a second time. “I guess I’ll say yes to that, too,” Arya says. While Gendry doesn’t smile, he nods his head as well. Arya thinks for him it counts as a smile.

 

He takes her bag to his quarters and walks her to a pub around the corner.

 

“Won’t you get in trouble?” Arya asks as she steps inside the pub. Gendry holds the door open for her, which she thinks earns them some funny looks. She is still dressed like a boy, but Gendry saw through the façade. Then again, he knew her from before, too.

 

“No, I’m working on my own project,” Gendry tells her. “I don’t work this late most days. Unless some grubby lord wants his shield repaired sooner. Evenings are for me.”

 

They sit down at a table away from the crowd, and Arya sees that Gendry seems to know most of the people who work here. He buys them both mugs of ale. It’s good stuff when she drinks it, and she watches Gendry kick back in his seat and stare at her as he holds the handle of his mug.

 

“What are you doing back here?” he finally asks her.

 

Arya realizes that until that moment she hasn’t really thought about it. She finds herself frowning and shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I wanted to come back.”

 

“You plan on going back to your family?”

 

Arya shrugs once more. She hadn’t heard anything about her family being alive, except tales of Rickon being seated as Lord of Winterfell, and he was still just a boy. “You know what happens if I go back.”

 

Gendry purses his lips and nods. “Yeah, I know.”

 

“They put me back in a dress and marry me off to some fat lord with wealth and land and onion breath,” she adds sourly.

 

Gendry snorts into his ale. He sobers up quickly, though.

 

“They said you were already married,” Gendry tells her quietly. “To the bastard, Ramsay. Called him Bolton like he was born and bred nobility.” He spits over the edge of the table. “I heard stories about him. I hope they gelded him before they killed him.”

 

Arya stares in shock. “They said I _married_ him?”

 

Gendry nods. “The Lannisters handed you over to him,” he says. “At least that’s the story they told.”

 

“The Lannisters are liars,” Arya spits. “What’s new?”

 

“Whoever they gave him . . . ” Gendry shakes his head. “Poor girl.”

 

Arya doesn’t want to hear the stories. Her stomach churns violently at the idea of what they could entail. “Can we talk about something else?” she asks.

 

Gendry tilts his head at her again. “Why are you dressed like a boy?”

 

Arya narrows her eyes. “It’s easier to travel this way.”

 

“You’re getting too old to keep pretending you’re a boy. Ought to just dress like a lady and be done with it.”

 

“And be raped on the road?” Arya snaps at him, her voice rising slightly.

 

Gendry is taken aback by her question. He leans back in his seat, shakes his head. “Sorry,” he repeats. “I just meant . . . stop running. The war’s over. Settle down somewhere. Find some peace. Life’s too short to keep hiding from everything.”

 

Arya stares at her mug, watching the froth float on top of the ale. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

 

Gendry is silent. He leans over the small table, crossing his arms. “How long do you think you can hide being a woman?”

 

It’s Arya’s turn to be silent. “As long as I can,” she answers stubbornly.

 

Gendry snorts again, turning away. This time it isn’t out of amusement. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he says, “or worse.”

 

“And what am I _supposed_ to do?” Arya seethes. “Go home? Be _married_ off like I’m a horse?”

 

He only looks sad now. “Do what you want to do,” Gendry tells her, shaking his head. “Whatever makes you happy, I suppose.” He sighs and looks down. “Just want you to be safe is all, and this isn’t safe. You know it.”

 

Arya downs the rest of her ale. “What I want,” she says, “is another ale, and then I want to lie down in the grass on a hill somewhere and stare at the stars. How’s that sound?”

 

Gendry looks up, gazing at her. He pats his hand on the table. “Let’s get another ale, then,” he says.

 

Arya almost smiles, but she doesn’t.

 

She wants to.

 

-

 

She sighs, heaving out a deep breath, and lays her hand on her stomach. “Tell me a story, Gendry.”

 

“I don’t know any stories.”

 

“Of course you _know_ some stories,” Arya argues, rolling on her side to face him. After they finished their fourth mugs of ale, they left the pub and wandered until they found a little hill with grass soft enough for Arya to lie in. It was sheltered beneath a large oak tree, but on its slope the night sky was visible above. Each star was a brilliant point of light, glimmering clearly in a cloudless sky. “Tell me a happy story.”

 

Gendry shakes his head again. “I don’t know any happy stories,” he says. “I ain’t got any.”

 

An inexplicable feeling hollows out her stomach. Arya rolls onto her back again, staring up at the sky. She can’t remember the last happy memory she had. She is sure it had something to do with Jon, but even so, she can’t remember it.

 

“Let’s make one up, then,” she suggests quickly. Drawing in another deep breath to prepare herself, she tries to think of the most stupid thing imaginable like one of those songs that Sansa liked so much. “There were these two outlaws,” Arya begins, “and they roamed the Riverlands together, going wherever they pleased. They rode during the day, and they hunted for food and sport. They became so famous that everyone told stories about them. Most of the stories weren’t true. They said they raided pirate ships and fought off bandits. Well, sometimes they fought bandits. Little folk needed saving, too, so they helped where they could because they were good. The smallfolk loved them. They were given favors and lodgings and food everywhere they went, but they preferred the open fields, the woods . . . an open hill under a starry sky.” She pauses, swallowing past a catch in her throat before continuing.

 

“They’d been parted once before, you see, and they realized they didn’t want to be parted again, so they made a pact. They made a pact to stay together this time. Because they’d seen so many loved ones die. They lost friends and family along the way. They’d seen war and death and stared them in the face, and they didn’t want to look anymore. They didn’t want to feel so alone in such a big world, so they decided they’d grow old side by side, two old wrinkly _fools_ —” Arya has to stop because there are tears in her eyes, tears she doesn’t want to spill. She sniffs them back and swallows again, calming herself.

 

Arya blames it on the ale and fears, suddenly, that Gendry will get up and storm away from her.

 

He is silent beside her, though. He doesn’t say anything at first.

 

He doesn’t reach out for her. There are no silly declarations of love. It’s not like Sansa’s songs, though Arya doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be like at all.

 

“I like that story,” Gendry finally says, his voice taut with tension, but it is also low and soft. “That’s a good story.”

 

-

 

His arm is warm around her waist, and so is his chest against her back. His room isn’t much, small quarters set aside in the blacksmith’s forge, but it’s warm from the fires that run all day. She came back with him because her bag and her horse were there, but she stayed because she didn’t have enough coin to waste on inn lodgings and Gendry didn’t mind sharing his bed.

 

He offered to sleep on the floor, but Arya insisted he stay in the bed. “It’s not like we haven’t shared one before,” she told him, and Arya swore, even in the dark, that he blushed hotly at her words.

 

It’s a small cot, but they somehow manage. She doesn’t mind having him pressed up against her when it feels like this. She feels safe and warm. Wrapping her arm around his, Arya settles comfortably into his embrace and closes her eyes.

 

Through his chest at her back, she feels Gendry swallow behind her.

 

“Does this bother you?” Arya asks. Even if it does, she doesn’t intend to get up. She hopes he doesn’t either.

 

Gendry swallows again. “I’ve never shared a bed with a lady,” he says.

 

“Do you mean a ‘lady’ as in a girl, or a ‘lady’ as in a highborn?”

 

Gendry is quiet. “Neither,” he answers softly.

 

“We’ve slept in a bed together before—”

 

“Not alone,” Gendry says a little quickly. “There was three of us that time, and you were younger then. This is different.”

 

Arya rolls over beneath his arm and puts her arm over his back, burying her face against his shirt. “Oh, just shut up,” she tells him.

 

Gendry takes a deep breath, exhaling it atop her hair, but he doesn’t say another word. Eventually, she feels his hand against the back of her head.

 

Not long after, Arya falls asleep in his embrace.

 

-

 

As Arya gathers her things in the morning, she hears Gendry stir behind her. He sits up in the cot as she sits on the edge, and Arya looks over her shoulder to see him rub his eyes blearily.

 

“Are you leaving?” Gendry asks suddenly, and she hears something in his voice. It’s a tone she can’t read.

 

Arya pauses. She hadn’t been sure if he wanted her to stay. He had left her once before. She isn’t about to believe he won’t do it again.

 

She had meant those things she said last night, but Gendry is stubborn to a fault.

 

“I don’t want to,” Arya admits to him, throwing away all caution. “Those things I said last night, I meant them.”

 

Gendry stares at her. He doesn’t look like he believes her, but he doesn’t say that out loud. His bright blue eyes have always been distrustful of things that aren’t common sense, and a highborn lady wanting to be with a lowly blacksmith isn’t common sense.

 

“Outlaws,” he says slowly. “Seems a bit much.”

 

“We don’t have to be outlaws,” Arya whispers back.

 

“Why me?” Gendry asks. “I’m nobody. I can’t give you silks and a castle. I can’t give you those things, Arya. I can’t.” He shakes his head, looking torn.

 

Arya shakes her head, too, fighting a sting at the back of her eyes. “I don’t want them.”

 

He stares at her for a long time, his disbelief turning into something that almost resembles acceptance. Gendry finally nods his head, swallowing past a catch in his own throat. “You want to stay?”

 

Silently, Arya nods.

 

“It won’t be like those songs,” he says.

 

“I don’t want a song,” Arya tells him. “I just want you. You can be a blacksmith. I’ll work at an inn. I don’t care.”

 

“You’d give all that up?”

 

Arya shrugs. “I gave it all up a long time ago. You call me a lady, but I haven’t been one since I was nine.”

 

Gendry stares at her. Recognition finally dawns in his eyes, and not for the first time since they started talking since last night, she sees him smile again. He did it while they were drinking after he had a few in his belly, but this smile is without the influence of ale.

 

As he goes to work, Arya looks around the city for wanted labor.

 

-

 

When the morning dawns the next day, she hasn’t left for the kingsroad.

 

Arya lies curled up in Gendry’s arms, fast asleep.

 

 


End file.
